Her smile spread even wider as I gave her a small wink.
Cane came up to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “You ready?”
I nodded, draping an arm around his midsection. “Yeah.”
* * *
We caught breakfast at a restaurant called Le Blanc Château, which was clearly one of Cane’s favorite restaurants in Charlotte because he knew exactly what he wanted, pronouncing each French word smoothly, like he’d said the words many, many times before.
We’d arrived just around the middle of brunch hours, and I decided to go with a bacon and cheddar quiche, which was beyond delicious. We ate and sipped mimosas, but not once did he bring Kelly up in a conversation. Not that I minded. I still wasn’t sure how to wrap my mind around what I saw, and being filled in about the truth was an even bigger pill to swallow. Plus talking about it would have killed our vibe, and at the moment, we were chill.
Once brunch was wrapped up, Cane paid and led the way back to his car. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked, buckling my seatbelt when we got inside it.
“If I told you, it would ruin it.” He push-started the car, wearing a faint smile. “You’ll figure it out soon enough. It’s a good thing you used the restroom before we left, though.” He pulled off, and I sank into the leather, deciding to enjoy the surprise.
Cane drove with a mixed shuffle of Drake, The Weekend, Miguel, Childish Gambino, and Kendrick Lamar pouring out of the speakers. The top of the Aston Martin was peeled back, the windows rolled down. I tilted my face toward the sky as we rode on the freeway, basking in the sun. When I dropped my head, I felt eyes on me and looked over. Cane was looking between me and the road ahead with a smile.
“What?” I laughed, pushing my hair back.
“Nothing.” His smile spread wider as he turned the music down a bit. “You’re just too beautiful for words. And you look happy.”
Heat crawled from my neck to my cheeks, and I grabbed his hand, bringing it up to my lips. “I probably shouldn’t feel so happy but…” I thought on my next statement, mulling it over. “Before, I felt like there was this gray cloud over my head with a storm building up inside it, day by day. I felt suffocated—like I was holding my breath, waiting for the day that cloud would get too heavy and break open, releasing the rain and thunder and even the crackles of lightning.” I let out a steady breath. “I hate how it happened, Cane.”
He kept his attention forward. “I know.”
Squeezing his hand, I brought it to my lips, kissing his inked knuckles. I kissed each letter, starting with the R. “But as fucked up as it was…if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t feel like this. Liberated. Free.”
His mouth twitched, a subtle smile taking over his lips. “All I want is for you to be happy and for things to go back to the way they used to be.”
“No.” The back of my head hit the headrest. “I don’t think things will ever go back to the way they used to be…but they can get better.”
That statement scored me a full smile. He revealed the top row of his teeth, glancing at me. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It can only get better from here, baby.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
KANDY
We’d reached an interstate sign that was utterly familiar. One I’d seen only yesterday.
I turned my head, putting my attention on Cane. “We’re going back to Georgia?” I asked, frowning.
He nodded.
“Why?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
I was so confused. What could he possibly have to show me in Georgia that he couldn’t tell me? I prayed he wasn’t taking me to something relative to Kelly. Ugh. That would have been a buzz kill.
Forty-five minutes later, we were cruising on the freeway that revealed Atlanta’s skyline. I tried spotting the precinct where Dad worked but couldn’t see it from where we were. I did see the building Mom used to work at months ago, though. Sighing, I slouched in my seat as Cane kept driving. I really did miss them.
When he passed the exit that led to Kelly’s clinic, I was relieved. Then he passed the exit that led to his old house, the scene of the stabbing. More relief.
He continued driving, going further and further away from the city. Where in the hell id he going?
My curiosity only ratcheted higher as Cane took an exit and passed neighborhood after neighborhood, each one appearing more and more unsafe than the last. He took a left turn, and a large sign that said “Welcome to Cascade Heights” appeared. My brows stitched, and Cane slowed the car down.
There were a lot of people on the streets. Some guys wearing basketball jerseys and hats stood on corners, younger kids played basketball on a court, but the goal wasn’t made of a net. It was made of an old crate. There was one house we passed that had a bunch of cars parked on the grass and loud music playing. Men were on their porches smoking, and drinking large bottles of beer…during the middle of the day.
“Cane, where are we?” I finally asked as he took one more turn on a small street and slowed the car down even more. He parked in front of a house that looked like it was supposed to be white but was covered with graffiti and had broken windows and large holes in the roof. There wasn’t any grass—it was more like a yard full of dirt. The house was small, and pretty much in shambles. There were dark marks coming from the bottom of it, too, like it’d been lit on fire and then put out. It looked completely unsalvageable.
“Come with me,” he insisted, killing the engine and getting out.
What? Was he serious?
He pushed out of the car, shutting the door behind him, and I looked around, my heart pumping as I got out. I rubbed the back of my arms with my hands, even though it was nearly eighty degrees outside. “Cane…why are we here?”
“Because this is where I grew up.” He stared at the house, and I lowered my guard just a notch, realizing what this was.
“Oh.”
He inched forward, giving the house a complete sweep with his eyes. “It used to look much better than this,” he laughed dryly.
“What happened to it?” I stayed close to him when I heard deep laughter in the distance.
“When I sent my mom to rehab, she couldn’t keep paying the bills for the place. She wasn’t working after all. The house was in Buck’s name. He tried selling it, but couldn’t make anything happen, probably because no one would be dumb enough to buy a home in this neighborhood. Technically, he still owns it, but I highly doubt he’ll be coming back to this piece of shit. It’s paid off, though. When I’d saved up a few checks from selling for Jefe, I paid the mortgage off myself so Mama wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”
I stood at his side, looking at the house too. “That was nice of you. I can’t believe you grew up in this neighborhood, though. Doesn’t fit you.”
“Funny enough, it’s all I really remember about my childhood. There were good and bad days. I heard gunshots all the time. Got into a shit ton of fights. I even got robbed…but that only happened twice before I learned to stand up for myself.” He looked to his left as a kid rode a bike across the street. “This neighborhood was a fucking hellhole when I stayed here—way worse than it appears now. I constantly promised Lora, my mother, and myself that I would get us the fuck out of here. I told them I would do something great—make a change in our lives so that we didn’t have to deal with struggling, or wondering what we would eat for dinner some nights.” He snatched his sunglasses off, and I realized his eyes were red and damp.
He huffed a laugh, dropping his head. “I sold drugs here,” he confessed. “When I was eighteen, I ran every street in this neighborhood. I owned it…and then I met your father.” He turned to look at me. “And I realized there was still a chance for me to do good. Be good. What I was doing wasn’t right. I was a terrible kid, but he saw potential in me. He saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself.”
My throat thickened with every word he shared. I had to tear my gaze away so m
y vision wouldn’t become blurry.
“I’m not proud of what I did here to get to where I am now. The people I had to threaten. The lives I almost took just to be at the top of the food chain…but I did what I had to do for my family. They were all I had, so I did what I could, until better solutions arrived.” His tongue ran over his bottom lip as he stared at the house. He stalled for a moment, and then he moved, walking up the dirt walkway. “Let me show you something.”
I followed behind him, and he went around the back of the house, where a broken-down shed was leaning. Pulling the doors open, he coughed and fanned the air with his hand as dirt and dust clouded him. I stayed back, waiting for it to clear up, and when it did, he stepped inside. He turned halfway, offering a hand, and I took it, gingerly moving into the shed.
It was mostly empty and smelled of mold and moth balls. “Watch your step,” he cautioned as he stepped over a hole in the floor.
He stood in front of a shelf that had empty wine bottles on them. The bottles didn’t have labels. “What’s all this?” I asked as he picked up a stack of papers that was beside one of the bottles.
He handed them to me, and I swiped the dirt and dust off with my hand, reading it over.
It was a business plan for Tempt. A complete outline, with income goals, types of wine, and everything. I looked up at him.
“Buck claims to be the one who thought of Tempt and all it represents, when the truth is he overheard me talking to a friend whose family makes the wine. I had to be about twenty, twenty-one. I went to school with this friend of mine, and he had a father in Italy who owned a vineyard. He’d bring me some of the wine to try, but his father never sold it. He made it because he loved it, but the taste was absolutely incredible. These were the bottles he’d bring or send to me,” he said, pointing at the shelf of empty green bottles. “My friend, Joey, visited one night, and I told him we could sell that wine and make his family a fortune. All we needed was his father to agree—which he did—a plan, and a name. We did a lot of the planning at school, but Joey came here a few times when I had to do something for my family. While we were planning, though, I couldn’t for the life of me think of a damn name for the brand. Unfortunately, when I was thinking of names one night, going over a list with Joey, I was on the front porch and Buck was around. He came outside and said I should have called it Tempt, because he was tempted to hit me with one of his beer bottles if I didn’t shut the hell up so he could hear the game. His words exactly.” He huffed a laugh, head shaking. “I never thought there’d be a day when Buck had a good idea…but even Joey said that name wasn’t bad, because the wine is strong and still a little sweet, and it sneaks up on you…so we went with it, but he didn’t have shit to do with building Tempt. I was the one who came up with that business plan, working hard on it every single night in college when I should have been studying. I was the one who went to Draco and risked my life, all for a dream, and all while still selling his drugs. All Buck did was mention the word during one of his annoying tirades, and it stuck with me. He didn’t own the word. He threatened me with it. I don’t even know how he remembers that conversation, given that he was drunk like always, but he’s used it against me for years, claiming he thought of Tempt and everything it stands for. I was tempted to change the name, but I was stubborn back then and wanted to prove a point to him, that he didn’t own the fucking word.” He smashed his lips together. “You know that he actually tried to go to court over it while he was in prison? Of course it didn’t get anywhere. No one wanted to represent a man in jail. But he’s had time to think. He’s going to come with some bullshit, and he’s going to want a lot of money.”
“Well, why don’t you give him some so he can leave you alone?” I urged
“It doesn’t matter how much I give that motherfucker, he’ll never leave us alone, Kandy.” He looked me in the eyes. “I tried it before. I filled his commissary—stuffed it with money so he could get whatever the hell he wanted and so he would leave us the hell alone, but was he satisfied with that? No. He kept making threats. Kept writing to my mother. Kept sending me letters, telling me that I couldn’t buy his silence.”
Damn. I didn’t even know how to respond to that.
“He’s miserable, and I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying ‘misery likes company?’ He hates knowing that we are happy. He wants us to be just as fucked up and miserable as he is and will do anything to make us feel that way.”
“Is that why you brought me here? To vent about him?”
He looked all around him, and eventually shook his head. “No. I came because I wanted to see it one last time before I left it behind for good. When I lived here—way before I met you or your family—I’d constantly come back to this house, even after Buck went to jail and Mama was hardly around. I came at least once a week just to torture myself,” he breathed. “I’d remember all that happened here—the hatred that seeped through the walls. The fighting. The years of abuse…but then I met the Jennings.” He put his eyes on mine, taking a step toward me and grabbing my hands. “And when I met that beautiful family and saw how happy and complete you all were, I came back here less and less. Unlike Lora, I didn’t run without looking back. I kept looking back, and it fucked me up for years.” He cupped my face, watching my eyes carefully. “I also wanted to show you where we grew up, to let you see why we fight so hard for what we want…because this is where we came from. What Lora did was truly fucked up, but she did it for you and me, and I can’t fault her for that because if the roles had been reversed, I would have done the same for her.”
I pressed my cheek into his palm, nodding. “I know you would have. And I don’t blame her for it, or you for thinking that way.”
His hand moved down to tip my chin. He dropped a smooth, warm kiss on my lips and then sighed as he pulled away. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” he said, grabbing my free hand. “And hold onto that. I might use some of those notes to write a book one day.” He winked and led the way back out. We walked back to the car, and I got into the passenger seat. He walked around the car to get to the driver’s side, but didn’t get in right away. He stood outside of it for a while, and I had a feeling he was giving the house one more view.
When he was in the car, he put it in gear without hesitation and drove off without looking back.
He’d mentioned that when he met my family, that he’d stopped torturing himself by coming back, but I think in that moment, he had really let that torture go.
His brutal past.
The years of abuse.
His broken soul that had slowly been restored thanks to meeting my family.
He let it all go, and for the first time in all the years I’d known him, he was finally in control of his own life.
Chapter Thirty
CANE
There was one more place I wanted to show to Kandy before going back home. It was a place that I had pretty much called my second home.
Killian’s Tattoo Parlor.
When I first started getting tattoos, I wasn’t even the legal age to get them, but I went to Killian’s garage anyway. Now, thanks to the fifteen grand I’d promised to give him if I ever got successful, he’d opened up his own shop. I was basically Killian’s canvas as a teenager, and he did one hell of a job. Every tattoo I had? They were drawn by him. My tattoos weren’t regrets. They all had meaning and represented my life in some way, shape, or form.
“A tattoo shop?” Kandy asked as I locked the car.
“Yep. I’m craving some new ink.”
“You’re basically slathered in ink,” she laughed, hooking an arm around my waist. “Where are you going to get another one?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get one on my face. Haven’t tried that yet.”
She busted out laughing. “You do that and I’ll strangle you.”
The shop was just as I’d remembered. The walls were painted burgundy, and there were three black leather chairs in their own corners. Every corner was vacant except Killi
an’s. He was inking up someone’s back, focusing hard on his work, brows furrowed and all, like I’d remembered. That focused face of his still hadn’t changed. Killian was a buff guy. He lifted a lot, and by the looks of him now, he hadn’t stopped. His skin was light-brown, his head bald. He had several face piercings and both ears pierced, and of course he was decorated in ink. Full sleeves on both arms. He even had tattoos on his legs and feet. “How can I help you?” he mumbled with his thick, southern accent. He was never a man for many words.
“There’s a lot you can help me with, actually,” I said.
Killian looked up, his eyes getting bigger. “Ho-ly shit!” he bellowed, stopping the buzz of the needle. “Cane? What are you doing here, man? Shouldn’t you be somewhere in Hawaii or some shit where all the rich people are?”
I laughed. “Just visiting.”
“You know I’m always happy for a visit.” He placed his needle down and said something to the man before taking his gloves off and walking my way. “Look at you, brother. Don’t even look a day past thirty.”
“The gray hair says otherwise.” We did our brotherly hug, clapping each other on the back. When he pulled away, he dropped his eyes to Kandy. “This is Kandy, my girl.”
“What, as in girlfriend?” he inquired, cocking his pierced brow.
I smiled. “I don’t know. I can’t really figure out what to call us. Maybe you should ask her.”
“Well, what is it, little lady? This man holding you hostage, or do you really love him?” Killian asked, grinning.
Kandy blushed and fought a smile. “I’m whatever he wants me to be.” She giggled. “But girlfriend sounds more formal, so let’s stick with that for now.” She beamed, looking up at me. I winked back.
“That’s good to hear,” he said.
“How much are your tattoos?” Kandy asked, looking around at a few of the artworks hanging on the walls.
Loving Mr. Cane: Cane Series #3 Page 18